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Alex Gurney drove the Gainsco Chevrolet Corvette to the checkered flag at Austin, Texas on Saturday. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Gainsco Corvette wins COTA Grand-Am race

March 1, 2013

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Gainsco-Bob Stallings Racing Chevrolet Corvette Daytona Prototype driver Jon Fogarty put the No. 99 Red Dragon on the pole, and co-driver Alex Gurney drove it to the checkered flag at the Grand-Am of the Americas Presented by Gainsco and Total, though Gurney had to hold off a hard-charging Ryan Dalziel in the Starworks Motorsports Riley-Ford on the last lap.

“It was a very intense race,” Gurney said. “That last 30 minutes seemed to last forever.”

In third was Scott Pruett, salvaging what should have been a terrible day after the veteran damaged his Chip Ganassi-owned Telmex Riley-BMW. Pruett rallied to challenge for the lead at the end of the race, but misjudging lapped traffic dropped him to third.

His co-driver Memo Rojas took the lead on the first lap of the race, and kept the car in front during his unusually long stint, but when Pruett dove inside Max Angelelli in the Wayne Taylor Racing Velocity Chevrolet Corvette DP in an ill-conceived passing attempt, Pruett had to drive over the roughest part of the curbing, which launched the car in the air, and caught the front splitter when it came down, ripping off the bodywork up to the windshield.

Dalziel also had to overcome a major problem, as co-driver Alex Popow was involved in a three-car crash early in the two hour, 45-minute race that caused substantial damage to the bodywork. Fourth was Stephane Sarrazin, who co-drove the 8 Star Motorsports Corvette DP with team principal Enzo Potolicchio.

It was the first win in nearly two years for the Gainsco car, owned by Dallas' Bob Stallings, who also sponsored the race with his insurance company. This was Grand-Am's first visit to the new 3.4-mile track, and drivers were unanimously complimentary, though Fogarty said, “We are all still exploring the best way around this place.” The crowd was far smaller than at the track's first event, the Formula One race last November, but track officials deemed the Grand-Am race a success nonetheless. They cited two-day event attendance of 26,648; F1's three-day attendance topped 117,000.

In GT, the battle was just as intense as in the Daytona Prototype class, as Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 458 driver Alessandro Pier Guidi passed Andy Lally in the Magnus Porsche for the lead with just a few laps remaining. But Grand-Am officials blamed Guidi for some comparatively minor contact after the pass, and penalized the Ferrari, gifting the win to the BMW M3 of Bill Auberlen and Paul Dalla Lana, which also managed to get by the Magnus Porsche. Lally and co-driver John Potter were second. In third was Leh Keen and co-driver Andrew Davis in the Brumos Porsche.

Auberlen and Dalla Lana also won the Continental Challenge race earlier in the day, also in a Turner BMW M3. That team also had to make up a lot of territory in the Grand-Am race -- early on, Dalla Lana made what he termed “a very aggressive move,” locking up the brakes and spinning off track in a corner. The car refused to restart, bringing out a caution flag and dropping the Turner team two laps down. “I put us in a huge hole,” Dalla Lana said.

They made it up, said Auberlen, taking advantage of the NASCAR-like “lucky dog” rule, meaning the first lapped car gets one lap back when there's a caution. That, coupled with the questionable penalty for the Ferrari, gave them the class win. “I'm not proud,” Auberlen said jokingly. “I'll take them any way I can get them.” There was also contact when he passed Lally, which led to a heated post-race exchange, but no penalties. Lally, Auberlen said, “isn't happy.”

Regarding that Ferrari penalty, it was a 60-second drive-through, but it came so late in the race it could not be assessed, so Grand-Am managing director of competition Richard Buck said he gave the Ferrari a 90-second post-race penalty, which dropped Guidi and co-driver Alessandro Balzan, who qualified first, to 11th in class, 23rd overall.

Also disappointed in how the day ended were Brendon Hartley and Scott Mayer in a second Starworks Riley-Ford, which finished 27th in the 35-car field. Hartley, a former F1 test driver, had driven the car into the lead and had a four-second advantage over second place when he made contact with one of the Audi R8 GT cars with less than 20 minutes to go, damaging the car's suspension.

In the lightly attended GX class, which had two diesel Mazda 6s and one Porsche Cayman, the BGB Cayman won after both Mazdas experienced problems. The SpeedSource Mazda of Tom Long and Sylvian Tremblay at least finished, coming in second, four laps behind the Porsche of Jim Norman, Jeff Mosing and Spencer Pumpelly. None of the all-new Mazdas finished their debut race, the Rolex 24 at Daytona at the end of January.